Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? (Matthew 16:24-26)
The first step in any discussion is the definition of terms.
People like to skip this step, but it’s important. The key term in today’s passage
is “soul.” Most of the reading I’ve done about souls has been by, or has been
influenced by, Professor Dallas Willard. He defines a soul as “that dimension
of a person that interrelates all other dimensions so that they form one life.”[1] He goes on to say that the soul is not the
person. It is “the deepest pat of the self in terms of overall operations.”[2] What the soul coordinates includes thoughts,
emotions, body, will, and relations with the universe (and therefore God) and
one another, and it does so without conscious supervision on our part, much as
the body, emotions, thoughts, will, etc., do.
If one loses one’s soul, therefore, it’s not something that
should be accompanied by the themes from Twilight Zone or X-Files. If one loses
one’s soul, rather, one becomes “uncoordinated.” This isn’t in a physical
sense, but the physical is a good analogy. Have you ever seen someone with Tourette’s?
His (it’s most often found in boys) face jerks. He blinks. He shrugs. He may make
strange noises while trying to say something. Stuttering is another example. In
more common experience, have you ever reached for something, and knocked it or
something else over? It’s frustrating and embarrassing when your body doesn’t isn’t
coordinated.
Losing one’s soul isn’t like losing one’s car keys. It is the
loss of the ability to coordinate our thoughts, our feelings, our wills, our
bodies, and our relationships. Because there is no coordination, one part of
the person may dominate – the body, or the emotions. The example that comes to mind is the celebrity
(take your pick) who rockets to fame and fortune, only to have his/her life fall
apart due to mental illness, drug use or some other lack of self-control. They’ve
gained the “whole world” but lost their soul, and therefore, they end up losing
everything.
Of course, it’s easy to see the “extreme cases.” But what
about your life or mine? What parts of your life seem to dominate you? Whatever
they are, it’s likely that those would be the same if you “gained the whole
world.” This is the problem. If you gain the whole world, but fall apart,
gaining everything won’t help anything. In fat, it might make everything worse.
Jesus tells us that if we want to have life, we need to deny ourselves
daily, pick up our crosses and follow Him. At least part of the reason for this
is the various selves involved. Our flesh wants this, our hearts want that, and
our minds tell us something else. Each seeks to take God’s place, declaring what
is real, what is important, what is necessary. If we lose our souls, these other
aspects of our selves take over and go to war against one another. No matter
which wins, we lose – even if we have gained the world in the process.
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